A veteren band's flirtation with something new... - 70%

Ahh...Crash, Korea's first thrash band. Korea's most successful thrash band at that. A band that started off sounding like what Sepultura started off sounding like, you know, good ol' aggressive death/thrash with lots of monotone, gruff yelling. However, with this album they started to flirt with what would be their later, more signature industrial/thrash style.

Personally, I prefer Crash's more straightforward beginnings to their sample-infested matured state. However, this album still contains enough of their old death/thrash sound to keep me happy. Overall, most of this album is very much like their first album "Endless Supply of Pain", but the main difference is a lot of the songs have random samples and electronics thrown in almost haphazardly. You can tell that the band was really just experimenting with the sound that they would later develop into a more full sound. It seems that they don't really know what to do, though. It sounds like they WANT to make industrial thrash, but they don't know how or where to go with it, so it ends up sounding just like old Crash, but with lots of silly samples thrown into the mix randomly. If you can ignore the fact that it sounds like a band that is confused about what music that they want to make, you can enjoy this album.

There still are full-fledged death/thrash tracks , and the ones that are here, are rather excellent and in true Crash spirit. There's even some mid-paced plodders here that work rather well. I always tend to decide whether a thrash band is any good or not dependent on whether they can do mid-paced thrash well or not, and Crash can pull off mid-pacers that will get stuck in your head and never go away. That is, full of energy, rather catchy...and lots of monotone yelling. I don't know why, but Crash's music always fit with Heung-Chan's style of vocalizing...which is basically yelling without EVER changing pitch at all. Granted, on later albums he learned to sing a bit, and he does have a nice clean voice, but when he's yelling, he keeps it monotone and simple.

The musicianship is solid, just like how it usually is with Crash. The solos aren't particularly flashy, but always fit with the music and usually come off as being pretty inspired and semi-technical. The drumming is spot on, as always. Jeong Yong-Wook knows what he's doing behind the set. There are also some interesting, yet not-so-technical, bass lines (as Heung-Chan has to keep is mind on vocals as well) that always fit with the music.

I enjoy this album, but it's not nearly as good as their debut or as some of their later work. They seem lost as to what music they want to make, but still have some real kickers on here and if you're a real fan of the band, or death/thrash in Sepultura's original style, then you'll definitely enjoy this Korean outfit.